Description
Jianchangopterus was a relatively small pterosaur, comparable in both size and morphology to Sordes . The skull was 43 mm (1.7 in) long and the combined length of the arm and finger bones was about 162 mm (6.4 in), which translates to a wingspan of at least 32 cm (13 in). Taphonomic damage to the fossil makes these measurements uncertain, and some of the sizes of individual bones are estimates. The authors of its description remark that it most likely ate insects, whereas most of the other pterosaurs it lived with likely ate fish. [1]
Jianchangopterus can be distinguished from all other pterosaurs by the following autapomorphies: seven teeth on each side of the upper jaw and six teeth in the lower jaw, a recess on the maxilla, an even dental margin, a ridge along the center of the mandibular symphysis, a strongly curved fourth phalanx of the wing finger, a very slender first phalanx of the wing finger (relative to the other three), and a relatively short fourth phalanx on the fourth toe. [1]
Paleoenvironment
The only known Jianchangopterus fossil was found in rocks assigned to the Tiaojishan Formation, dating to the Callovian-Oxfordian age of the Middle-Late Jurassic, [3] dated to approximately 159 million years ago. [4] The ecosystem preserved in the Tiaojishan Formation is a forest dominated by bennettitales, ginkgo trees, conifers, and leptosporangiate ferns. These forests surrounded large lakes in the shadow of active volcanoes, ash from which was responsible for the remarkable preservation of many of the fossils. Based on the Tiajishan's plant life, its climate would have been subtropical to temperate, warm and humid. [5]
The Linglongta locality, where Jianchangopterus was found, is one of the most productive fossil sites in the Tiaojishan Formation. Fossils of ostracods, branchiopods, insects, fishes, turtles, and plants are abundant, and a huge diversity of terrestrial vertebrate fossils have also been found. Among these are the theropods Anchiornis and Xiaotingia , the ornithischian Tianyulong , and a huge assemblage of pterosaurs. Pterosaurs known include the istiodactylid Archaeoistiodactylus , Wukongopterus , Kunpengopterus , three species of Darwinopterus , Douzhanopterus , and several rhamphorhynchids including Jianchangnathus , Scaphognathus , and Fenghuangopterus . [2]
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